Chicago to New York, New York to Chicago

In November Mom and Dad came out to New York because he had a meeting and that's a good excuse to come to New York. We started out with a late lunch at Emily in the West Village and a visit to Washington Square Park.

Then we took advantage of an unexpected opportunity and caught a quick train down to Princeton to see a BYU basketball game. I'd never been to Princeton but found it to be pretty cool, even if it was dark when we were there and, you know, you see less when it is dark.

The next day we went to the Michelangelo exhibit at the Met in the morning and that night we ate tacos and saw the Play That Goes Wrong. Boy, did that play go wrong!

The next day Mom and I had lunch at Uncle Boon's Sister and then did a little Soho walking. We found Uncle Boon's Sister to be quite good, a fine relative to the excellent Uncle Boon's.

That night we were back in Soho for dinner at Le Coucou, a truly beautiful restaurant. And then Dad and I went up to the Met to see Madame Butterfly. It was a striking production.

The next day was a Saturday, Mom and I did a lot of downtown stuff like seeing the Luis Vuitton exhibit (really), eating at Fuku, and riding the Seaglass carosel. 

Then we rode over to Brooklyn for a visit to the Green-Wood Cemetery, always worth a good explore every few years.

That night we had dinner in Estela. It was superb, just wonderful, I can't believe I had put off going there for so long. It was also too dim for any decent photos. Then, and I still can't believe it happened, we went and saw Cats. I'd never seen it before! We wound up with second row seats and I'm still trying to make heads or tails of what I saw.

The next day was Sunday and we started the day off with lunch at Cosme. It was an absolute home run, hard to believe I almost cancelled the reservation. After church we had dinner at the Dutch and then a nice long West Village walk. Again, too dark for photos. But it was all good. Mom and Dad went back to Chicago the next morning after a good little breakfast at Daily Provisions.

On Thanksgiving Eve Patricia and I went to see the balloons being inflated. The next day we'd have Thanksgiving at Jordan's in Queens.

Here's pictures from a neighborhood walk I took the day or two after Thanksgiving.

Then a few days later I snuck out to Chicago

And grabbed lunch at Johnny's

Before making a surprise appearance that night (along with fellow surprises Kristen and Walker) at Dad's retirement party

The next night we had dinner at Fonda Frontera, a new Rick Bayless restaurant in Wicker Park right by an absolutely beautiful Taco Bell. Fonda Frontera was an absolute home run, I had no idea it would hit so strong with the family.

After dinner we talked Emily into taking us on a tour of the new Mormon church in downtown Chicago. It's a very impressive structure, really puts every Mormon building in Manhattan to shame. 

The next morning we went with Kristen and Walker on a tour of Oak Park area parks. Then we had a little lunch at Mickey's, another classic local spot that I'm not sure how long I hadn't been to.

We went and did some important Western Suburb archeology and then, a few hours later, it was back to New York with me.

Since Mexico

Somedays you wake up and realize you haven't blogged for a month and a half because you blogged so hard a month and a half ago. So let's start getting a little caught up on what's happened since Mexico.

I had a two day layover in Chicago on my way back to New York. Among other things, we celebrated Columbus Day, went to the Vienna Beef Hot Dog factory restaurant (a true museum of real Chicago culture), ate tacos and a torta right after that, and I booped the nose of a deer statue.

I got back to New York just in time to go to lunch with Eliza and Andrew, who both happened to be in town, and to sit in on an important business meeting Andrew had. And to take Andrew to spend $50 on next to nothing at Atla.

There was a church thing where I was supposed to take everyone's picture, but then the orders changed to "take a few pictures, whatever" more or less, so here's the results of that

One night I went out to Brooklyn to see Nicolas Jaar. It was good. He had a single neon tube for the occasional lighting effect. He just made bleeps and bloops on his consoles for the first 25 minutes before he played anything with a beat and it was 50 minutes before he played anything I recognized (and I consider myself a fan) but he played for over two hours, there was just a long warm up before he really started hitting us with the jams.

But as far as concerts go, the big deal thing was the Imagine Dragons organization, via Marilyn and the Reynolds brothers, hooked me up with tickets to their sold out show in Brooklyn. I took Arthur and Erick from tutoring. It was a little tricky figuring out our ticket situation, we spent some time at the VIP entrance (which smelled very nice) but eventually got in the show and we had some pretty nice seats but then Brandon hooked us up with passes to the GA area in front of the stage and, yep, those were even better!

There was a night of Chinese food out in Flushing. You can count on me not being late to dinner in Flushing.

And then another night I went to Fuku for their Chimek chicken feast with Jeff, Michael and Tessa. They helped me decide to go to California the next day.

So the next day I flew out to California. It happened to be Halloween. I went to Cher's Halloween party. I just wasn't very picture-takey on the trip, or in general, since my Mexico trip. I really wore out my picture finger on that trip. And my posting-finger.

The next day I had lunch at Mom's Tamales and Mariscos Jalisco, then I met up with Lucas at Kismet for snacks, and then I ran over to dinner at Night + Market Song, but here are just pictures of snacks with Lucas. If you're headed to LA, or perhaps live there, I certainly do recommend eating at Kismet.

The next day I went to the Gene Autry Cowboy Museum and I had a real good time learning about cowboys, California, Western art, and cowboy tv shows and movies. They also had a big exhibit about playing. You know, toys and games and stuff. Nice to see Guitar Hero made it into a museum!

Then I got lunch with our friend Collin at a Thai place near Disney he had been curious for me to try, and I'm glad he did, because it was quite good and quite charming.

Now, I'm pretty disappointed in myself for not having pictures of anyone or anything else (like, say, Grandma or her new car) but then the next morning I flew up to Utah and got lunch with Cindy and then she took me to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum. Which was great. But I certainly would have been bored if I went there when I was, say, 11 or 12. I'm very glad I waited, it was worth it.

Then we went to the Salt Lake Cemetery to see this one crazy tombstone.

And you know I did a lot more stuff in Utah and ate at a lot of places but really I didn't take any photos, I guess I was having too much fun? But here's a picture of Andrew from when we went to Provo for Don Joaquin's and then went to the Provo Bakery.

Back to New York! One day I went to Christie's to see the DaVinci painting that was going to auction (and would fetch $450 million the next week) along with many other works of art soon to be auctioned. I really liked it there, it's my favorite museum now because everything has a price on it and that really helps me like them more.

There was a trip out to the Jersey Loews. No pics of the theater, but here I spy friends inside Boulevard Drinks enjoying hot dogs.

The next morning Carol was in town and we had lunch at Hart's in Brooklyn, just moments before it became very famous. Looks like I didn't get any pictures of Carol! But Carol took my picture in front of the Elvis/Smiths mural in Chinatown. Looks like the Elvis side of the mural is a smidge more popular than the Smiths side.

Visited Andy (no pic!), saw more art,

And get this: the Lymans live by me now, and sometimes we go to Harlem Shake! (it's happened more than once!)